How New Technology Created a Special Generation of Companies
How New Technology Created a Special Generation of Companies
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/2026/may/how-new-technology-created-special-generation-companies
Publish Date: 2026-05-29 13:09:00
Source Domain: www.chicagobooth.edu
Narrator: Today, the largest 1,000 US companies generate nearly half of US private-sector output, giving them enormous influence over the economy and our daily lives. Their size and staying power raise a question: Can any company become a superstar business or are other external conditions beyond a company’s control needed in order to reach a level of dominance?
Yueran Ma: In this research, we hope to understand the life stories and the evolution of the largest American companies.
Narrator: That’s Chicago Booth’s, Yueran Ma. She and her coauthors pieced together records from the largest companies stretching back more than a century.
Yueran Ma: First of all, we need to know what these largest companies are—not just for now, but also over time. Right now, if you want to find out about the largest American companies, you can look up, for example, the Fortune 1000 list on the internet. And the Fortune list started in 1955. So that gives about half a century of coverage. But we also wanted to know the largest American companies going back further—and the earliest list we can find so far is the largest 500 American companies in 1917. And then once we know who they are, we want to look up their stories. We want to know when they were founded in particular. And for that, we first look up companies’ websites. Many companies, about 90 percent of the largest US companies now, have company history websites dedicated to tell their story—when they were founded and for what reason.
Narrator: In manufacturing, a clear pattern stands out. Many of today’s largest US companies were founded between 1880 and 1920. The same cohort dominated the rankings in the 1950s, and even in 1917, when those leaders were only about 30 years old on average. Today they’re roughly a century old. This special generation has persisted even as the specific names at the top have changed.
Yueran Ma: Among the largest 500 US manufacturers in 1955,…
